Prostitution Law: No Increase in Forced Prostitution

“The assumption that liberal prostitution laws lead to an increase in human trafficking is refuted. On the contrary: ever since the liberalisation, there has been more police activity but notwithstanding, there are significantly less suspects, convicts and victims. That’s rather an indicator that the disentanglement of prostitution from criminal environments is increasingly successful.” – Volker Beck, MP

In early February, the German Greens submitted an enquiry to the federal government, concerning the impact of the German prostitution law on the trend of human trafficking. On February 22nd, the government issued a reply. The following are translated quotes. Below, you can download the enquiry and the answer of the federal government as pdf files. All documents are available in German only.

“In the year 2000, the National Situation Report about Trafficking in Human Beings registered altogether 926 victims. In the year 2011, there were 640. This equates to a decrease of just under 31 per cent. If one compares the figures of registered victims in 2003 [a year after the prostitution law was passed] and 2011, one sees a certifiable decline of just above 48 per cent.” It should be noted that this is despite “greater activities by the police”, a fact Volker Beck referred to in the above quote. [Page 7-8]

From a quantitative viewpoint, the risk potential of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation in Germany is “limited”. [Page 8]

“The annually compiled National Situation Report by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) shows no significant increase of victims that would indicate an expansion of the phenomenon as a result of the prostitution law taking effect.” [Page 10]

The reply by the German government thus refutes the claim by Neumayer, Cho and Dreher that legalised prostitution increases human trafficking.

7 responses

Reblogged this on Harlots Parlour and commented:
Looks like official statistics from the Germans Government dispelled the myth that liberalisation of sexwork increases coercion and trafficking in our work place. Seems the complete opposite is true as we all know should be the case.

I think what Mr Beck points out and what is mentioned in the government’s reply, too, is particularly relevant: there has been more police activity but there were less suspects, convicts and victims. Often, when an increase in trafficking cases is blamed on the liberalisation of sex work/prostitution laws, the fact that increased police activity naturally leads to increased case figures is disregarded by opponents of such laws in order to support their arguments. In the German case, they have no such luck.

Note that Mr Beck also states that “every victim of human trafficking or forced prostitution is one too many” and that he suggests more effective protection of victims by making it easier to grant them residential status in Germany. Now there’s a man who makes sense.